Nautical churches

[Spuddy]

tis the season to be spiritual and I was thinking of churches that are the focus of a maritime congregation.
When I were a lad, me Gran took me to a chapel in Whitby which I'll look up again. I think I've got it mixed up with the one in Moby Dick which had whale jawbones for a pulpit.
Then there,s one in Weymouth. And the one in Ullapool which is now the local museum.
Any other salty or fishy churches/chapels that you know of ??


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[Lizzie_B]

The Norwegian Sailor's church in Cardiff, now relocated to the pier head as part of the Cardiff Bay develumpment., St Woolos cathederal in Newport, founded, i believe by a reformed pirate, St Mellons Church, on the Eastern outskirts of Cardiff, which was the chapel of Henry Morgan the pirate/government official and of the Reardon Smith Shipping family, and of course about 50% of the churches in Cornwall!!!

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[jimi]

Church de la Mer in St Vaast. Very touching

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[Cutter]

Royal Naval College at Greenwich. Sunday service always ended with last verse of Hymn 540. 'Eternal Father Strong to Save'. Drinks in the mess afterwards - or playing on the snooker tables while parents drank strange things like Horses Necks!

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[nordic_ranger]

The sailors gallery in the Old West Church in Greenock. It has a very nautical conection and has the grave stones of old sea captians in the grave yard.

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[TheBoatman]

Sailors mission/church, Ramsgate.

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[penultimate]

Church of St.Anna, Limehouse, flies the white ensign I understand as a leading mark on the Thames.

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[Neraida]

St Nicholas Greek Orthodox church in Southampton has carved glass depicting Christ, the ocean terminal and the Queen Mary and Queen Elizabeth liners

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[penultimate]

Correction to a typing error in my last post: the Limehouse Church is dedicated to St.Anne, not St.Anna.
On a more solemn note: there used to be a memorial in the chapel at H.M.S. Osprey to those who drowned when a pinnace returning to H.M.S.Illustrious in Portland Harbour sank in I believe 1948. Even Google has no reference to this event; and I wonder whether anyone knows whether the chapel still exists, and if not what became of the memorial?

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[Koeketiene]

Horses Neck = brandy+ginger ale

<hr width=100% size=1>Experience is a good teacher, but she sends in terrific bills.

 

[AliM]

On the same theme, does anyone know why Danish churches very often have a model of a ship hanging from the rafters? It's usually a beautiful model of a 3 masted sailing ship, in superb condition, and we saw them in several churches in Jutland and the smaller islands.

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[John_N]

I am not a religious person, but the atmosphere in the Chapel Rocamour(?) by the marina in Camaret never fails to move me spiritually.

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[DanTribe]

I also noticed these ships in Danish churches. They are called votive ships, apparently donated by sailors in thanks for a successful voyage or for deliverance from dangerous situations. Some were beautifully built, possibly professionally, others more primitive.
However agnostic you may think you are, there comes a time during bad weather at sea when you think that a promise to a higher power might help. I suppose that's the reason behind these ships.
As a child I remember a model of a longship in a church at Althorne, now a private house.I wonder if the model's still there?
Dan

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[Metabarca]

Two spring to mind: one is the little Romanesque church in Finisterre (Galicia) which has a statue of the Virgin saving fishermen, and the other is the splendid wooden church in Honfleur built by shipwrights: effectively, it's an upside-down ship!

<hr width=100% size=1>Adriatic links here: <A target="_blank" HREF=http://www.comoy.com/saillinks.html>http://www.comoy.com/saillinks.html</A>

 

[AndrewB]

There's another, lovely, fisherman's church just before Finesterre, at Mugia, positioned on the beach so as to provide a leading mark avoiding the dangerous Quebrantas rocks at the entrance of the Ria de Camarinas.

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[Gunfleet]

She's the patron saint for those who go to sea. THe French coast is covered with chapels of St Anne. One of the nicest is at Cherrieux, near Cancale, on the coastal road to Mont St Michel. The sea around there is silted up now and what were fishing villages have become farming villages, but as late as 1700 it was worth having a lighthouse at Quatre Salines nearby.

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[penultimate]

I believe the Dockyard Church in Portsmouth is dedicated to St.Anne. St. Anne is the patroness of Brittany which may have more to do with the number of churches dedicated to her there than her association with Seafarers, (add to that the Bretons reverence for La Reine Anne).
I understand that St.Nicholas is the patron saint of sailors, and there is another fine window to St.Nicholas for this reason in the Metropolitan Cathedral in Liverpool.

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[Peppermint]

Re: The most spiritual

church I've ever visited. Is in St Just's in Roseland. Falmouth.

You can go by boat if the tide serves. It's tiny, spartan and has more atmosphere than any other.

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[Gunfleet]

Thanks for that. Perhaps I was given duff info by a local. No good praying to the wrong saint! Looking them up on the net they each seem to carry a portfolio, but St Nick is definitely your man for sailors, along with St Brendan. By the way I think it's La Duchesse Anne and La Reine Mathilde.

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[billmacfarlane]

As Jimi has said, the church in St Vaast with the shrine to the fishermen who have died is moving.

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